


fulcrum.

by scoundrelhan



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-13 00:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9098122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scoundrelhan/pseuds/scoundrelhan
Summary: Cassian Andor’s life was one built on loneliness.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm a huge hypocrite, but I need more of these characters so here's the official fix-it fic no one asked for.

Cassian Andor’s life was one built on loneliness.

K-2SO - or as Cassian called him, Kay - was a welcome addition. He filled the long silences, and riled Cassian up. Kept him on his toes, even if he was only a walking, talking pile of Imperial nuts and bolts. He was Cassian’s closest friend; maybe that should have been sad, but he didn’t care. When he was very young, before the Rebellion was even a distant thought, his father bought a housekeeping droid to help keep up things around the house. Cassian used to sit and try to make its rusty outer shell shine. He never found out what happened to that droid.

At the moment, Cassian was sitting in the dining hall of the Massassi base, watching everyone else laughing, and talking, and telling stories about that one time they did that one thing and swore they wouldn’t make it out alive. He was supposed to be resting. In less than five hours, he had to be on his way to the Ring of Kafrene, a trading post a few systems over to meet an old contact of his who said he had pressing information, no time to waste. They all said that, but Tivik had been to Jedha, a fairly recent place of Imperial interest that they’d been monitoring. He poked at the rations on his plate before getting up and throwing them out.

The hangar was nearly empty at this time of night, save for a few guards neglecting their posts to play cards and a couple pilots tending to their ships. Being in a rebellion meant funds were practically non-existent. Half the supplies they received were smuggled, or secondhand. Diplomats and royalty could only deplete their funds so much. His ship was an outdated U-wing, a fighter despite her age, but the list of new parts she needed was long and ever-growing.

K-2SO was sat in the co-pilot chair when Cassian entered the cockpit.

“Seeing as I will not be there to save you, would you like to know the chances of you falling asleep at the controls and killing yourself tomorrow?”

Cassian didn’t give him the satisfaction of a glance, let alone a comment. Instead, he reclined in the captain’s seat, and stared out at the tarmac, pinks and oranges spilling across the concrete as the sun set. He could have blamed his insomnia on Yavin having more hours in a day than he was used to, but him and K-2SO both knew that was not the truth. He didn’t waste his breath on worthless lies, and wasn’t in the mood for a dead-end argument.

“Fine, then. If you won't give your human body the rest it needs, then you can help me chart your mission course.”

They proceeded to bicker over calculations and the best way to navigate the asteroid belt for the next hour. The Ring of Kafrene had been under Imperial control for a long time, but that didn’t stop it from maintaining its black markets and gritty reputation. Tivik promised that the troops stationed there tended to let visitors mind their own business if they didn’t cause too much trouble, but Cassian still had to choose his movements carefully. If he was boarded, he could only explain himself out of so much before they smelled the rebel on him. 

Cassian started to fade after K-2SO had thrown enough statistical analysis at him to fill a book. His eyes ached from looking at too many star charts, and his body was rejecting the hard metal frame of the seat digging into his back through cheap foam and faded leather. Every single bone and cell was pleading for rest.

“I can tell you’re not listening anymore,” K-2SO sighed, tinny and artificial. Droids didn’t sigh, but the reprogramming allowed K-2SO to pick up on many human traits and habits, including sarcasm, much to Cassian’s dismay. “I’m going to power down now. If you don’t give yourself at least three hours, I will have Mon Mothma herself assign someone else.”

“Good night, Kay,” Cassian said, pointedly.

K-2SO muttered something about ignorant humans and stubbornness on their way out.

The base was locked down for the night. He wondered, sometimes, about the ancient people who left behind such strange architecture. He wondered what they would think of it being used for military operations, if they would have joined the cause. Cassian settled deeper into the chair, and forced himself to close his eyes. Dreams were inevitable, but he found no solace within them. In the darkness, all he saw were the faces of the dead. He opened his eyes.

The last remaining lights flickered out within the base. 

 

-

 

Cassian watched from above as troopers ran, single file, like white ants, through the congested streets towards the alley he’d just fled. 

The informant (Cassian had to call him that, for his own sake), the barrel of his blaster pressed to the man’s back, his finger pulling the trigger, the thud of dead weight - the newborn memory was a dull knife, one that was trying to work its way under Cassian’s skin. His chest felt like it was being compressed. Cassian was no stranger to killing. There was this feeling of deja vu, like he’d already pulled the trigger at that exact moment, but Cassian didn’t have time to dwell on that. He had murdered more men and women than he cared to remember in the name of the rebellion; they all started looking alike. It was his job to get in and out without being compromised. It wouldn’t take long for Tivik to become just another nightmare, another drop in the ocean of things Cassian tried to forget.

_ For the rebellion.  _ That should have been enough. After everything he’d lived through, that one phrase should have been enough.

Cassian continued on, scaled a few more rooftops until he spotted his U-wing where he’d hidden it in the hulking shadow of a retired Imperial cargo shuttle. The junk yard was deserted, to his knowledge, but he felt cagey as he jumped from one dark corner to the next.

The ship’s small quarters had never felt so suffocating. He made the calculations and the jump to hyperspace before anyone could even think of spotting him on their scanners.

On the way back, after he’d confirmed his mission a success (the word tasted bitter on his tongue) and relayed a coded summary of Tivik’s intel, Cassian turned the information over in his head.  _ Planet killer _ , the dead man’s phantom words hissed in his thoughts. Rumors were rumors, until they weren’t. Fear dripped down his spine, made him shiver despite the heat of the cockpit and the sweat curling the hair at the base of his neck. As an intelligence officer, he’d known for a long time that the Empire was exhausting a lot of resources for the construction of something massive and dangerous, but never in his wildest nightmares could he have conjured up a horror quite like that.

Cassian sucked in a breath, and set the controls to autopilot. The tightness in his chest did not fade, and he didn’t let himself relax until he’d entered Yavin’s atmosphere.

The base was still asleep when he landed.

Cassian paused for a moment in the open doorway, and enjoyed the peaceful, humid morning. Yavin IV was the complete opposite of his homeworld. Fest’s forests had been barren, trees weighed down by the weight of snow and ice that never thawed. Here, everything was green and lively, overflowing with life and warmth. Cassian had been a child tossed into the harshness of winter and a tumultuous war. Fest, a desolate, frigid hell in the outer rim, was a planet where most children either froze to death before they were old enough to walk or died working in the industrial plants. The former was the kinder end.

His past wasn’t something Cassian often reflected upon. He’d been fortunate - or not, depending on how one looked at it - enough to join the insurrection so young. Fest tore itself apart for years, and Cassian had been smack in the middle of it, throwing glass bottles at dead-eyed troopers and following in his father’s rebellious footsteps, building his own fierce reputation. There was nothing romantic, or glorious about the war, but Cassian had gotten his first taste of what it meant to be part of something bigger and brighter than one’s self during that time. Cassian never stopped craving it. 

He contemplated briefly if he would have still ended up here had his childhood been different. Cassian liked to think he would have. There was nothing in the wide universe that filled him with such satisfaction than being a soldier, fighting for the freedom of people just like him. The nightmares, the blood on his hands, all the grey areas and regrets - they were insignificant in comparison to the cause. He’d never had the luxury of peace. A life of peace meant a life of complacency, in Cassian’s opinion. 

A one person landing party stood at attention on the far side of the tarmac. General draven’s tan uniform blended in with the rest of the dull surroundings, a stalk of hay in a haystack. Wind whipped around Cassian as he made his way towards the man. Draven gave a stiff nod in lieu of a greeting. He did not look happy; then again, he never did. 

“Captain,” Draven said, offering his hand. Cassian gave it a firm shake.

“Sir.”

“There’s a briefing in five minutes. Walk with me.” 

Draven started for the temple at a brisk pace. There was that odd feeling again in Cassian’s chest, like he’d been here before, watched in this exact spot the ancient stone catch fire with the same glow of the sunrise. He brushed it off. Days here tended to blur together. Cassian fell into step at the general’s side. 

 

-

 

_ Jyn Erso _ .

Her file was lying on the edge of the round table in front of him. 

Cassian had read it over enough times in the last few hours to know most of the pages by heart. She was 21 years old, and the daughter of a high-ranking Imperial science officer, Galen Erso. Was once under the care of extremist Saw Gerrera, but ran away at the age of 15. There was a long, long list of minor offenses, and some not so minor. The worst she had been caught for was illegal arms dealing, but that was to be expected when one used to roll with Gerrera’s crowd. The other charges were mostly petty theft, trespassing, the usual suspects of a life on the run.

He thought it funny, hypocritically so, when they called her a criminal as if that was such a horrible thing; as if most of the men and women under their command hadn’t had their fair share of conflicts with the law; as if they didn't pass out full pardons to recruits like candy to children. They spat the word  _ criminal  _ at Cassian’s feet as if he himself hadn’t received one of those pardons. The law stopped mattering to him when the Alliance, like his father had done when he turned six years old, shoved a blaster into his hands and told him that the only way to survive was to fight for something one believes in. He’d committed more crimes, worse crimes, with the Alliance’s insignia stitched to his sleeve than when he was a child fighting Imperials on the streets with sticks and stones. He didn’t know Jyn Erso - although, somewhere, deep down, he felt like he already did - but labels like that weren’t something he so blindly gave to people unwarranted.

Mon Mothma was dressed in her traditional senatorial robes, a bright spot in the dim room. Despite the anxious energy infecting the air, she was managing to maintain a calm manner as she discussed something with Draven. Cassian couldn’t help feeling intimidated by her every time they crossed paths. She was a remarkable yet terrifying woman in all her graceful, reserved glory. There was an extra hint of intimidation with only Draven, Merrick, and a few other high-ranking officers present to divert her attention.

At the sound of urgent footsteps, the room jolted back to life, rousing from its previous state of quiet stagnation. Cassian moved away from the table, favoring the shadows for the time being. He wanted to get a feel for this girl without her getting a feel for him. If her history was anything to go by, Jyn Erso wasn’t a force to be underestimated, no matter how misguided or erratic.

Leading the escort group with a soldier on each side was the woman herself.

Jyn Erso looked everything and nothing like Cassian expected. He’d seen her ID card, could still picture her world-weary face, but she was thinner, a little rougher now. There was a wild look in her eyes that set his teeth on edge, made his hands itch for the blaster strapped to his thigh. He supposed that was what spending a few months in an Imperial work camp - they might as well have been death camps - did to a person. Not that her past had helped. Jyn ripped herself from the soldier’s grasp who was leading her by the elbow, and made a point to lower herself slowly into the chair.

Draven circled the table, and snatched Jyn’s file, opened it to a random page. Cassian had seen and done it all before, and, if Jyn’s bored expression was anything to go by, so had she. This wasn’t really a formal interrogation; they knew most of what they needed to know, and she wasn’t so much a prisoner as she was a hopefully useful tool.

Cassian began to move back into the circle. His limbs felt like they were on strings, like he was in a play, reading from a script. A stabbing pain pierced straight through his hip, and there was something very, very wrong. He’d stood here before, said these words, had these bitter thoughts.

_ I’ve been here before. I’ve been here before. I’ve been here befor- _

In an instant, Cassian found himself lying in hard-packed Jedha sand, Jyn pressed against him as explosions sounded from every direction, and in another, he was lying on hard metal, the database tower a long finger pointing towards the sky to where Jyn had climbed.

He wanted to wake up. He wanted out, because he’d been here. This pain was old; the journey ahead of him, over.

Was he dead? This was all so real, vivid, horrible, but he’d been here.

Cassian struggled, arms turning to liquid, his leg giving out as soon as he tried to put pressure on it, and then, he was outside, explosions ringing in his ears, aiming his blaster at the man in white who was aiming his own at jyn. Everything was accelerating, like someone was fast forwarding through a holotape of Cassian’s life. They were in the elevator, and he was thinking about how they were going to die, and how unfair it was that they would be robbed of a future even though Cassian knew his entire life that we wasn’t going to survive. People like him weren’t meant for futures. There were Jyn’s hard eyes, and her anger, and her strength, and her breath soft against his face as they studied each other. He wanted to kiss her if only to get a glimpse of what a future could be; he hadn’t, because even at the brink of death, he couldn’t finally let himself be that selfish.

Cassian did not want to remember. 

There was the beach, and Jyn risking herself to drag his failing body towards the landing pad, and the entire earth trembling beneath their feet, and Bodhi’s static-laced voice screaming at them to  _ move _ . There was blaster fire, and the sound of men dying - troopers, friends, enemies, rebels - and the sun eclipsing, and his vision fading but not before he witnessed a flash of green and felt the heat of a planet on fire.

He shot back through time, and there was his first mission, the first time he pressed the barrel of a blaster pistol to a man’s head and pulled the trigger. There was the month Cassian waited for his father to come home, and he never did, and there wasn’t even a body, or a burial; just a name. Was that all Cassian would be? Would he even be that? Was any of this worth it?

If this was the afterlife, Cassian did not want it, but it seemed he didn’t have a choice.

Finally, finally, there was silence, emptiness. The torment stopped.

Finally, he slept.


	2. Chapter 2

Death hadn’t come for him yet.

Somehow, Cassian knew this, was aware that he was still breathing somewhere outside of this place where time didn’t seem to exist. He had let himself drift far into the void, far enough that he forgot what it was like to be corporeal. The memories, the nightmares, they had stopped haunting him, but there was one moment - a flash, really - that felt like all the pain he’d ever experienced and more was being funneled into that exact second and then suddenly, gone. Silenced. It left him unsettled, but it never happened again. Now, there was the quiet current of his thoughts, and a presence - unknown, but not malicious - that weaved its way through the stream.

A steady beep had been disturbing the layers of darkness for some time.

Cassian reached out for the noise to silence it, wanted nothing more for it to leave him in peace, but it only grew louder, more tangible. Voices, muffled like he was underwater, joined in. He was aware of something painfully bright. The numbness from before was slowly leaking from his body, and suddenly, he could feel the tips of his fingers, his entire hand, then both of his arms. Life spread like a disease, and for a split second, Cassian opened his eyes. Light stabbed ruthlessly into his retinas; all he could see was white. He thought, dazedly, that he must be blind. It was an entire shock on his system, total sensory overload. His mind couldn’t quite process the concept of conscious movement.

“Cassian, I need you to take a deep breath. Can you do that?” Someone was asking, and hands were on his arm, at his pulse point. He realized the harsh wheezing was coming from him. “Give me one deep breath.”

He did. And then another.

It took seconds, or minutes for him to regain enough stability to take in his surroundings. His vision was blurry, but he was definitely in the intensive care unit of medbay from the looks of all the bacta tanks. A medic with short hair and kind eyes was at his bedside, checking his charts. Seeing a human face, feeling human touch - relief flooded his veins. The beeping sound from earlier was coming from a heart monitor. 

He was alive.

Exhaustion tugged him back under the waves of unconsciousness.

Cassian did not sleep soundly now that he was aware of himself. All of his thoughts were on the mission, on everyone else, on the base. Who had survived? Did anyone receive the transmission? Where was Jyn? He gave up on pretending to rest, and woke to dim lights. There were no windows here, nothing to help him regain a firm hold on time. A med droid was tending to the bed directly across from his. The curtains restricted his range of sight, but it wasn’t much of an issue, considering that moving his head felt like moving a mountain.

There were tubes and bacta and bandages. A lot of them. He didn’t need to remove them to understand that the damage was extensive. Probably some nerve damage from the blaster shots he’d taken. It hurt when he breathed, and after trying to sit up and promptly dry heaving over the side of the bed, his left hip had clearly been busted from the fall. There were burns, too. Disappointment settled like a heavy stone in his stomach. He inhaled deeply, anger sparking inside him at the way his ribs protested, and exhaled, slow. They wouldn’t clear him for duty any time soon. Not in this condition.

Hours ticked by in antsy boredom. He’d apparently been in a coma for five days after the rescue from Scarif. He was rearing to go, but every medical officer and droid he spoke to said he still had at least three days before he was allowed to get out of bed. Some of the medics looked at Cassian like he was some kind of god, stammered his name and rushed through small talk as they marked down his vitals. Visitors technically were not allowed in this wing, but he supposed they made exceptions for the team that stole the plans for the Empire’s weapon of mass destruction.

Bodhi came twice. His first visit had been emotional. Cassian wouldn’t stop thanking him, and Bodhi wouldn’t stop hugging him, and a med droid had had to kindly force him to leave so they could change Cassian’s bandages. The second time, he told Cassian that Bail Organa’s daughter, Leia, had been captured by Vader, but the plans had survived. It was only a matter of time before they did something about it. The final battle was on the horizon. The whole time Bodhi’s hands had twitched on the bed sheets, and he couldn’t maintain eye contact. 

Everyone wore trauma differently. Bodhi wore it quietly. Cassian hated to watch him leave.

An eternity seemed to pass. Cassian was able to sit without feeling like his bones were crumbling, and, on a good day, could shuffle his way around the perimeter of the bed. There was still a lot of recovery, but at least he didn’t quite feel as much like he was wasting away, rotting in his own uselessness. 

Jyn never came. He didn’t know what he expected. Being confined to a bed and stuck with one’s thoughts had made him doubt that there’d been anything between him and Jyn at all. Everyone on the base was too busy fighting the good fight, anyway. It was childish of him to think that they had any spare time to waste keeping him company. This was war. There wasn’t room for distractions, especially relationships. Her friendship would be enough, but it didn’t stop him from feeling the loneliness tenfold. 

Two weeks after waking up, Cassian was given crutches, fresh bacta patches, and strict orders not to overtax himself. News of the Princess’ rescue and subsequent return reached him before he was released. He heard from one of the medics that some moisture farmer from the Outer Rim, a Corellian smuggler and a Wookie were the ones who saved her. It sounded a little exaggerated, and entirely far-fetched, but then again, him surviving Scarif was, too. 

Cassian made his way through the base’s catacombs, and tried to ignore the lingering stares and whispers. It was surreal, this newfound fame. He was not enjoying it. He wanted to be left alone, but people, most of them pilots and officers he’d never seen before in his life, kept coming up to him to shake his hand or ask how he was doing. He was cordial, gave them plastic smiles and hoped he didn’t look as uncomfortable as he felt.

All Cassian wanted was to see the light of day, and find out how to make himself useful. He was itching for work, even if it meant he was grounded.

While he was keeping his head down and trying to make it through the main hangar towards the temple entrance, someone bumped into his crutches and almost sent him toppling to the concrete. He caught himself on a nearby X-wing’s landing gear, and ignored the way his entire abdomen screamed in protest. The pilot was apologizing profusely, practically tripping over himself as he tried to help Cassian.

“I’m fine, really. Don’t worry about it,” Cassian tried to say, but the guy was already grabbing onto his arms and didn’t let go until he was steady on his feet. 

“Oh,” the pilot breathed, overgrown bangs flopping into his wide, bright eyes wide as they settled on Cassian’s face. “You’re Cassian Andor, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Cassian responded, already tired of this conversation. He’d had the same one at least twenty times now.

“Luke Skywalker. It’s an honor, sir. I heard all about what you did on Scarif.”

Cassian blinked. It was his turn to be stunned. Looking at him, Luke Skywalker seemed far too young and inexperienced to be the guy the whole base was talking about, the guy who rescued Leia Organa from the Death Star itself. His uniform was bulky on his small frame, and the neon orange fabric made his blonde hair stick out more than it already did. Luke couldn’t have been much older than 18. People who smiled like that, so easy and open, hadn’t been around long enough to see the galaxy for what it really was.

“Skywalker? ” Cassian echoed, and the kid rubbed at the back of his neck, a shy grin crossing his face. Seemed he knew what to do with the spotlight as much as Cassian did.

“Yeah.”

“Well, Luke, nice to meet you,” he said, leaning on his good leg so he could offer the kid his hand. Luke took it, his hand warm and unexpectedly strong.

“Nice to meet you, too, sir.”

“Cassian is just fine. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, sure. Hey, listen, it really was great to meet you,” Luke said, grinning again before waving goodbye, and ducking under the X-wing to catch up to a fellow pilot. The man clapped Luke on the back, and threw his arm around his shoulders.

Cassian watched until they disappeared from view, and kept moving.

The hangar was filled with an infectious energy he hadn’t felt in a long while. Pilots and astromech droids scurried about, patching up and fueling ships like their lives depended on it. He stumbled upon Bodhi, who was helping a pilot - Cassian was pretty sure that his name was Janson - with his thrust engine.

“Did you break yourself out of medbay?” Bodhi asked, but he was smiling, and gave Cassian a tight hug that made his bruised ribs ache.

“They let me out before I could. What’s going on around here?”

“You haven’t heard?”

Bodhi went on to explain that since the Princess’s return, the Death Star was fully operational, and had demonstrated its power by obliterating Alderaan. Cassian went numb at Bodhi’s words, the ghost of a feeling materializing from the depths of his memory. _All the pain he’d ever experienced and more, funneling into one single second. Silenced._ He shook it off, decided he would explore that later. Bodhi was saying something about how they’d held an emergency council meeting a few hours ago and had unanimously decided to engage the Death Star and ultimately destroy it. They’d be dispatching all squadrons in a little under three hours. A new bout of frustration coursed through him

“What do they expect _us_ to do? Just sit here and wait?” Cassian demanded, and Bodhi shrugged, his eyes downcast as he played with the wrench in his hands. They were shaking ever so slightly.

“I can’t - I can’t go out there. Not again. I don’t know how to explain it. I want to fight, but I… I can’t,” Bodhi murmured, and shrugged off Cassian’s comforting hand. “And you - you’re still in recovery, so even if you wanted, there’s no way they’d give you a ship.”

As much as Cassian hated to admit it, Bodhi was right. Putting other people in danger and jeopardizing their chances of success just so he could feed his action-hungry heart was reckless. He could pilot X-wings, had done it multiple times, but he wasn’t anywhere near the level of skill required for something like this. He sat with Bodhi for a bit, watched him work and joke with Janson, occasionally throwing in his own advice or banter. It calmed him down being in good company. Cassian let his mind wander, and observed the hangar, not really searching for anyone or anything in particular until a familiar face startled him back to reality.

Jyn was making her way across the floor in the opposite direction, a notable limp to her gait, a datapad in her hands.

It was strange seeing her outside of battle, outside of their mission. There wasn’t any urgency, or any life-threatening distraction to keep him from looking. Jyn was still wearing the same clothes, but they were cleaner. Everything about her seemed to be. There was a brace on her right leg, which explained the limp. He considered going after her, if only just to confirm that she was okay, that they’d really made it out of Scarif alive, that this wasn’t some elaborate dream. Cassian’s last memory of her was this: them, struggling through the sand; him, on the verge of unconsciousness in her arms; the way the green had lit up her dark eyes before the world broke in half and he blacked out.

Someone cleared their throat behind him, ripping him from the memory’s grasp.

“Sorry to interrupt,” General Draven said as Cassian turned around to face him. He watched Bodhi and Janson retreat to the other side of Janson’s X-wing. “I need to speak with you.”

“Of course,” Cassian replied, searching over Draven’s shoulder for Jyn. She had disappeared in the crowd.

“How are you feeling?” Draven asked.

“Fine,” Cassian said. He felt very conscious of the crutches and the bulge of the patches under his clothing, how weak he must have looked, but he kept his chin high.

“Good. The council meeting already happened, as I’m sure you’ve heard, but Princess Leia would like to have a word.”

“About what?” Cassian asked.

Draven guided them to an elevator and waited for it to empty. The doors shut behind them, and he pushed the button for the second floor. Cassian’s question went unanswered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes, edited a little bit of this. Messed with the timeline even more. Bear with me.


	3. Chapter 3

Jyn Erso’s life was one built on running.  
  
She was watching transports and X-wings milling about outside on the tarmac, prepping for action. A data pad dangled from her right hand, but it was nowhere near forgotten. Out here in the open air, her head wasn’t clear, but she didn't feel quite as trapped as she did in the cramped barracks or overflowing hangar bay. It was as decent a place as any to reflect on her situation.   
  
Jyn understood that she had a choice to make in the coming days. She was out of medbay, and was about as healed as she was going to get. Tonight, the rebels were going into battle, but it would end, and she would be left with a choice: stay, or go. Her instincts, shaped by an old-now-dead man’s paranoia and a wanted life, were screaming at her to run, run far away, run from this fight that had only brought her more unwanted pain. The voice told her she’d done her part. She’d fulfilled her father’s mission. The rebels had their coveted plans, and they would either win, or die trying. She didn’t need to stick around any longer. No one had asked her to, but then again, no one had necessarily told her she wasn’t welcome.   
  
_Welcome home, he said, just for them to hear, and she wanted so much to believe that it could be, that for once there was a place and people waiting for her if they came back at all._

It was hard to maintain that belief.

Jyn circled back into the hangar, leaving the vast, starship-infested sky behind her. The area was teeming with engineers, pilots, repair droids, and every other conceivable enlisted being that was on Yavin IV. Deployment of all squadrons was hours away, according to chatter. She pushed her way through the crowd, and, for the first time since the rescue, was just another face.   
  
After the their return, everything changed. The whole base had been informed about the situation on Scarif, waited eagerly to meet the people who’d defied orders of the Council and came out victorious. During the days she had stayed hidden away in medbay, Jyn had become a new woman in the eyes of the Rebellion. No longer a criminal, or daughter of an Imperial, but a hero, a savior.   
  
Jyn wasn't new to herself.   
  
She didn’t understand these people with their talk of ceremonies, and “proper recognition”, and medals. Thankfully, the ceremony had remained just that - talk. Jyn had done her job like everyone else, and the war wasn’t anywhere near being over. The real heroes, the ones who'd covered their backs and sacrificed themselves, they wouldn’t get medals. Sure, she had transferred the plans, but she would have died - Cassian in her arms - on that beach had it not been for the rebels that had dragged them out of death's hot, hungry maw. If they were lucky, some of them would be quietly immortalized in a list of the deceased. Jyn Erso should have been just another name on that list, just another life lost in the crossfire of the war; she should have been left with her comrades and enemies in the coarse sand to burn up in the wake of the Death Star's destruction. Death wasn’t a wish of hers, but she felt wrong, like her presence was an insult to the natural order.

Before she slipped into an open elevator, Jyn's eyes scanned the hangar bay one last time. In a repair bay on the opposite wall, she spotted Bodhi welding something to the outer hull of an X-wing, the said ship's pilot watching the process, and then, leaning over to say something to not Bodhi, but someone else - 

The data pad in her hands grew heavy, despite it weighing no more than the humid, stale air surrounding her. She watched the man she was trying very hard to avoid smile at whatever the nameless pilot said. An unfinished request for transport off the moon stared up at her in bright, white letters before she powered it off, stuffed it in the back of pants next to a pistol that was a near replica of the one she'd stolen from Cassian's bag (the original was probably just ashes now, if that) all those long weeks ago. That was at the very beginning. Before Saw, and her father, and the mission, and the place where she should have died.

Jyn thought absurdly to herself that they matched. Her, with a brace around her leg no amount of bacta soaks could save, and Cassian, with his crutches. They were both broken people, it seemed, trying to live without the pieces they'd left on that beach.  
  
No matter how much she tried to evade him, Cassian traced her every step. A part of Jyn, newborn and unknown, didn't want to avoid him, but the large part of her, the part that was ingrained in her soul in the aftermath of a life spent in battle and believing that trust lied solely within one's self, said that this was the only way to stop the ache in her chest. Saw - it hurt, still, to think of him - had taught her how to survive, and survival meant looking out for one’s interests. So, following the same beaten path she’d taken for years, Jyn had kept her distance, thinking that it would let her sort through her priorities without distraction. All it had done was make things worse. The ache in her chest was slowly growing.   
  
Jyn had visited him once while he was in critical condition, mere days after their arrival on Yavin. Threatening a med droid had been easier said than done, but after a few colorful ideas about how to disassemble them, they’d eventually told her the location of the “other patient”. Jyn had been in a bad way herself, covered in bruises and burns and toting a dead limb, but mobile enough (pain medication was a beautiful thing) to make it to the room next to hers without collapsing. Cassian had looked like the shoddy patchwork of a man she once knew, tubes and bandages and bacta patches barely keeping his stitching together, but she had stayed, sat there at his bedside and forced herself to face the carnage even though it made her sick. Jyn had wanted him to catch her, wanted his brown eyes to open and see her. She'd wanted him to see her, in all her broken, pathetic glory. A med droid had had to remove her before her ridiculous wish could come true.   
  
It was frustrating, like an itch that wouldn't go away no matter how much she tore at her skin. The more she tried not to think of him, the more she was reminded.   
  
Jyn could have gone back, wanted to, had multiple opportunities, but it was like watching a holo of Scarif every time she'd looked at Cassian's bruised, sleep-smooth face. She couldn't stop thinking about the water, running red with Imperial and rebel blood, and the way she'd felt the life draining from him as they’d fought their way towards the pad, and the shrapnel from a nearby blast she'd taken to the leg that had almost killed them both. She had almost failed them. Jyn's stomach rolled, and she forced the feelings back into a dark room in her mind and locked the door.

A man with ashy blonde hair and a tan coat to match - Draven, probably - was obstructing her view. Another choice bared its teeth at her. Turning away was more difficult than she cared to admit. She bared her teeth right back, and shouldered her way into a lift.

The barracks hallway was deserted when she stepped onto the second floor and limped her way down the corridor. Having a room to herself was strange, to say the least. It consisted of a twin bed, a desk that doubled as a dresser, and a single light. Jyn had nothing of her own to populate the empty space besides herself and the clothes on her back, which is why, besides the brief hours she spent sleeping, she never stayed for too long. There was a terrifying sense of commitment that wrapped itself around her whenever she walked past the threshold. Right now, she was burnt out enough to ignore it.

Jyn collapsed onto the thin mattress and stretched out her bad leg. Medbay didn’t have enough resources to risk an amputation, so she was stuck with it for now. It was a reminder of what could have been. For the most part, the limb was numb, which she supposed was supposed to be some kind of mercy. Pain would have been better, something to keep her grounded in reality. Pain was an old friend.

She laid back, and let the hum of the base lull her to sleep.

Her dreams were not so much dreams, but emotions, bits and pieces of scenes from her past, her father, and places she’d never been swirling around in the darkness. She struggled to grasp them, keep them in place long enough for her to experience whatever they were trying to tell her. Jyn knew that this was a message. About what, she couldn’t be sure, but suddenly, her grip held, and she was on the beach, deafened by the raging battle. The pain she’d wanted before was back, full force, white hot and breath-stealing. Cassian was pressed into her side, wheezing breaths stuttering against her neck, muttering something about the comlink. Bodhi’s desperate, crackling voice was the only thing keeping her from collapsing.

Then, without warning, they were hundreds of steps behind, and the comlink was silent, and instead of moving towards the pad, she was leading them towards the shoreline. This felt disconcertingly real, like she’d lived this except she hadn’t. She knew she hadn’t, but the same salty air was filling her lungs, and she was witnessing the same unnatural eclipse on the horizon. Her legs moved without her, brought them closer and closer to the water’s edge until Cassian slipped out of her hold, collapsed to his knees in the wet sand. She followed him, and held his hand as they watched her father’s weapon light up the sky. Then, the beach disappeared altogether. Jyn was standing on the sidewalk of a busy street she didn't know, snow-peaked mountains towering above the sleek skyscrapers. Green lit up the sky once more. This time, she was there long enough to feel the terror of millions and the unfathomable heat.

Jyn woke up sweating, gasping for breath, and to the sound of someone knocking on her door.

She choked back a sob. Tears that weren’t her own dripped down her cheeks, and she swiped them away in confusion, hissing when she connected with damaged skin. The knocking continued, more insistent now. She lurched out of bed, and threw the door open to reveal a lieutenant about her height. He lowered his hand, and straightened his jacket.

“You're requested in the War Room.”

“Why?” Jyn asked, crossing her arms.

She wasn’t looking for confrontation, but the dream was fading fast. Jyn knew she'd had it before. She knew she would lose it if she left now. The place over her heart was burning, and her heart itself, racing. Unconsciously, she reached for her mother’s necklace, forgetting that it, too, had been lost in the chaos of Scarif.

“I don’t know. I was just ordered to escort you, ma’am,” he said, sneering around the last word. Jyn stared him down for a few seconds until the smile was wiped from his pinched features. She snatched her vest from the floor. The dream was gone, but the feeling was not. That would have to be enough.

“Alright, then, _sir_. Lead the way.”

The walk - it was more like a march - was tense, but it was silent. Jyn appreciated that.

The closer they got to the heart of the temple, the livelier it became. More high-ranking officials than she’d ever seen before populated the hallway, and when they entered the War Room itself, it was like stepping into another world. They passed displays with charts she didn’t understand and officers checking comms. The floor opened up, and all of a sudden, she recognized this place. She’d sat at that table before as a criminal; now, she was standing as a free woman. Presently, a few generals she didn’t recognize stood around it. She knew one of them - a man with a white beard and receding hairline - from the council meeting that had tried to decide her team’s fate. A woman in a flowing dress and a golden Imperial droid were there as well, an odd pairing even in Jyn’s experience. A palpable, unwavering confidence emanated from the woman that betrayed her soft features.

There was no mistaking royalty.

Jyn stopped in her tracks while the lieutenant informed the woman of their arrival. She nodded in response to whatever he said, and turned to Jyn. The dual buns in her hair made her look young, but her eyes told a different story.

“Jyn Erso,” she said with a kind smile. “I’m Princess Leia Organa. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Jyn took the woman’s hand. Her handshake was as strong as durasteel.


	4. Chapter 4

Bodhi Rook was tired.

He was tired of the war. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to fight. The whole reason he was here was because of a man who had shown him the importance of one’s convictions, listening to the voice in one’s head saying, This is wrong. Do something about it. And he was doing something, had done something, in the eyes of the Rebellion. He was the Imperial defector, and he was the pilot who’d rescued (most of) the team on Scarif, and he was the guy the pilots here went to if a droid couldn’t help them with their ship malfunctions. He was tired of the war, and the feeling that he took fifty steps back with every step forward.

“Wedge is a good guy. You’d like him. He’s a defector, too. Used to fly TIEs,” Janson was rambling, hovering over where Bodhi was kneeling and attempting to weld an extra sheet of durasteel to the underbelly of the pilot’s ship.

Fixing ships was methodical, distracting. Known. X-wings weren’t really his expertise, but all ships were the same if one broke them down to their most basic elements. Wes - Janson, he’d insisted upon Bodhi calling him - was good company. Talkative. Had a sense of humor. More importantly, he didn’t ask questions. All people ever wanted from Bodhi were stories these days, and he was tired of that, too: being an attraction. His background was a point of interest, as well. Bodhi wasn’t blind to the wariness and disgust in the faces that passed him in the temple’s halls. Apparently, the helping-steal-the-Death-Star-plans thing hadn’t erased the fact that he’d once been an Imperial himself. Bodhi hadn’t forgotten either.

The point was Janson didn’t press, but he didn’t shy away from anything. He just talked, and Bodhi worked, and that was that. It was the most himself he’d felt in the weeks since the mission. Since Scarif.

“Maybe we’ll talk after,” Bodhi muttered absently, sparks and the dark tint of his goggles turning Janson into an indistinct smudge.

“There’s that new kid, too. Skywalker. Word is him and Biggs grew up together. He seems a little too wet behind the ears for my liking, but he’s got spirit. I guess we’ll see if he’s as great as they say he is.”

“Hmm.”

“I know, I know. I’m running my mouth. Always happens before things get crazy.”

Bodhi inspected the seam he’d made, ran a gloved hand over the smooth metal and set the torch down. He pushed the goggles up his forehead, and squinted up at Janson. He didn’t quite know what to do, or say, or how to act. Comfort wasn’t something he’d experienced a lot of in his life, but anxiety was. Fear. Janson was afraid, even though he did a great job of hiding it. This battle was pivotal. The future of the Rebellion depended upon the actions of these men and women, including the pilot standing before him. It was quite possible this was the last time Bodhi would see the man. Scarif had placed the weight of the world on Bodhi’s shoulders, and he could see the inevitable evening lowering itself onto Janson’s.

Bodhi didn’t know what to say, or do to ease the burden, so he turned to the one thing he did know.

“I’m not promising anything, but the mod should help reduce some of the damage you’ll take from their artillery.”

Janson crouched down to Bodhi’s level, eyes tracing the new addition to his ship.

“Thanks,” he said after a moment, and clapped Bodhi on the shoulder, cutting him off before he could protest. “No, really. Thank you.”

Bodhi nodded, not quite meeting the other man’s eyes. Together, they did a final walk around. Bodhi touched up a few mistakes, insignificant in the grand scheme but he already had enough of the dead haunting him. He didn't want another. He’d known Janson for maybe two hours, but that didn't matter. He deserved to come back alive. All of them did.

Janson excused himself, but not before giving Bodhi a hug. It was quick, more of a pat on the back, but Janson was warm and Bodhi had forgotten what it was like to touch another human being. He’d isolated himself after Scarif, couldn't handle anything but the cold, detached darkness of his bunk. Bodhi didn't have the mind or time to hug him back.

“Take care of yourself,” Janson said with a smile, giving Bodhi a mock salute.

“You too,” Bodhi said back, and the weight of everything, not just his exhaustion, was backbreaking, almost crippling as he watched Janson melt into the orange sea.

He gathered his tools, stuffed his gloves into his belt, and wandered towards the lifts. Pilots were gearing up all around him, shouting and laughing like they didn't have a care in the world. There was a deep, deep pit inside of him that reminded him of everything he could be doing, but wasn't. He just couldn't. Janson had asked him if he was joining up, that there was always a place for newcomers, and Bodhi had panicked, nearly burned his gloves off with the welding torch.

He wanted to fight. He wanted to do something. He wanted to stop being tired. He wanted to end the war. He wanted so much, but his mind and his heart were torn to shreds in the aftermath of Jedha and Scarif. Bodhi hadn't had time to process what happened to his home. He lied awake at night, and thought about all the people, the children, the friends that were turned to particles, vaporized without a trace. That was what made it so difficult. There was nothing left. He had nothing left but himself, and the opportunity for purpose.

Scarif was its own unkillable beast. It lashed its claws and gnashed its fangs at it him at any given moment, wounded him every time he let his guard down. Bodhi hadn't slept a full night in three weeks. He retreated down the hall to his room, determined to get some rest anyway. The pilot he was supposed to bunk with had been killed on Scarif, so he was alone. Bodhi still hadn't decided if that was a good thing, or not.

As a result, his room was impersonal, void of permanence. The only items he had were his work goggles and his ragged Imperial uniform, which he’d folded and stored in the compact dresser for safekeeping. The tools were borrowed. So were the clothes. Bodhi supposed the Rebellion didn't want people parading around wearing the enemy’s propaganda.

There was no love lost, obviously, but he missed the security of his old uniform. The fatigues they’d given him to replace it were mismatched and secondhand, didn’t fit him quite right. At least, the coveralls had been comfortable.

Bodhi sighed through his nose, moved past the rumpled bed and sat at the desk against the far wall. He wished there was a window, or some other light source besides the unforgiving, artificial lamp and its single bulb sibling that was hanging from the ceiling. The room surrounded and suffocated him like a prison, like the dusty cell he’d been kept in when his only concern had been finding Saw. His mind still quivered and broke apart at random moments, thoughts and memories floating far out of reach like debris in the vacuum of space. The penetrating touch of that horrible creature lingered, filled his nightmares as often as Scarif’s cruel chaos.

Thoughts of Scarif led him to thoughts of his friends. He liked to think they were after everything, and Cassian's warm welcome earlier had been a kind reassurance. When Cassian had been in medbay, Bodhi'd been too shell-shocked to be there for himself, let alone another human being. Jyn, too. Knowing they'd almost died on his watch was too much to bear. He remembered shouting himself hoarse over the comms, watching in numb horror as the horizon lit up green. The ship quivering and moaning almost as loud as the wave of destruction crashing towards them. And then, the shock of relief, two figures limping across the sand. Too slow, too slow, and the wave was almost upon them. The windows had almost melted from the heat, and then, Jyn screaming from the hold to _Move_ , and then, hyperspace dragging them from the depths of almost certain death, and then, watching Cassian, Jyn, the few men that made it being carted off on stretchers, half dead. The burns. The blood. God, if only he'd gotten word to the fleet faster - 

Bodhi’s hand trembled where it lay on his thigh. He clenched it into a fist.

They were still alive. Against all odds, against logic, they were alive. Bodhi had never been a religious man, but a life spent in the ancient, beating heart of Jedha City meant there was no escape from whispers of a power older than time, the stitching of the universe itself. In the absence of logic, there was faith, and Bodhi was inclined to believe, if only a little, that something had guided them back.

He closed his eyes, and an old prayer, discursive, half-forgotten but the feeling was still there, surfaced from the murky depths of his childhood. His mother, knelt at the foot of her bed. A soft mantra. And later, a man, whom he hadn't been able to save, with reverence pouring from his lips and tears in his sightless eyes. Bodhi found his lips moving of their own accord, his tongue tripping over the repetitive syllables, breath catching in his chest.

He felt a little ridiculous, an ex-Imperial trying to pray, but there was never any harm in trying. The Rebellion needed all the help they could get tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so terribly sorry for how long it took me to update. I have been non-stop busy with midterms and other personal business these past couple of weeks. This chapter is truly just a filler (and because I love Bodhi a lot) so please be patient with me. More will be coming soon!


	5. Chapter 5

The table, Jyn noticed, was not just a table, but a communications apparatus.   
  
The sides of it funneled into an artificially bright center from which the disembodied voices of pilots transmitting their call signs and confirming their statuses radiated. Princess Leia was speaking with the man with the white beard, General Dodonna (Jyn had heard his name in passing), and Jyn was feeling extremely out of place even after the Princess herself had extended a formal invitation to stay. There had clearly been some resistance to this decision; Jyn could feel the scathing weight of disapproving stares all around her. She wasn’t enlisted, let alone someone who had the pull or rank to be standing in this room, but it was hard to turn down the invitation of a woman who understood the Empire and its terrible power (the terror of millions and the unfathomable heat) as much if not more than she did.   
  
Bodhi was nowhere to be found. She didn’t blame him for not coming, and envied him if he’d been left out entirely. Jyn was considering leaving - there were still hours to go - but the Princess’ words had struck her.   
  
_ “Perhaps, it will offer some closure.” _   
  
Jyn had never wasted her time pursuing closure. War was war. People died, losses were more common than wins, and the survivors either learned to live with that or they joined their friends in the afterlife, if there even was one. She’d told herself that she’d done what her father asked, but his mission ended with the Death Star’s annihilation. This wasn’t only for Jyn; this was for Galen, for his closure. This was for the beach and everything before and in between. For Chirrut and Baze, even K-2SO, and all the other soldiers who followed them blindly and paid with their lives. A deep, insatiable need ran through her.   
  
Jyn needed to see this. Jyn needed to watch the Empire fail.   
  
Despite the lack of feeling, her leg had managed to cramp, and she could feel sweat seeping through the thick fabric of her pants. Jyn staggered over to a display with a map of neon green veins, leaned against it, and transferred the pressure to her good side. Fatigue had crept out of the darkness, taken her by surprise. It draped itself across her shoulders. She wanted to sit, but it seemed Rebel command enjoyed mass discomfort.   
  
"Here,” a familiar voice said to her right.   
  
She saw the crutches before she saw his face.   
  
Cassian was holding out a tin mug filled to the brim with a tar-like liquid that could only be rationed caf. Tendrils of steam reached out into the air, and slowly dissipated. Jyn took it in silence.   
  
Facing him here and now was not something she’d prepared herself for, but he was here now nonetheless. Princess Leia had either expanded her invitation, or he was here for work; either way, he probably wouldn’t tell her. Jyn watched Cassian shift from one foot to the other out of the corner of her eye. He winced, a tiny crack in the facade, and Jyn hadn’t meant to look, but she couldn’t stop now that she was. She tried to dispel the thought before it could solidify, but he was still handsome, despite all the damage (because of it). He was impossibly thinner than before, cheeks a bit more hollow, clothing a bit more loose. There were new bruises and new scars amongst the old, particularly a jagged line down the side of his jaw. His hair and beard were unkempt; there was a patch on his left cheek where the dark hair had grown around, the skin there an angry red. A burn, Jyn guessed.   
  
"How long?” Jyn asked, gesturing to the crutches with the mug and pretending like he wasn’t watching her watch him.   
  
She wasn’t used to small talk. It felt silly, considering the importance of the coming evening. Action always came easier to her than words. During the mission, there hadn’t been time for this, and it had made things simple. Jyn hadn’t figured out half of the things she knew about the man before her by asking him about the weather on Jedha. One could get to know another better in the middle of a firefight than sharing a drink, or empty pleasantries.   
  
"Longer than I want,” he replied. “You?”   
  
"Permanent.”   
  
He nodded. It was affirming to see that he was still the same calculated, battle-worn soldier she’d met all those long weeks ago. There were no pitying words, no apologies, just an acceptance of the facts. Jyn took an absent sip from the mug, and tried not to spit the watery, gritty mixture back up. She set it down on the table below the display.   
  
"Horrible, isn't it? I almost forgot how much I hated it,” Cassian commented, quieter than before.   
  
Jyn understood the look on his face. He was an open book when he wanted to be, the ink of his emotions coloring his hard features, stanzas hidden in the dark circles beneath his equally dark eyes.    
  
There were a lot of things she’d believed she would never see, or hear, or taste again. She didn’t think of herself as overly sentimental, but certain things, little things - Jyn found herself revelling in them. A warm bed. The feel of the Yavin system’s sun on her arms. She’d done it so many times before going into one of Saw’s risky operations. Distraction meant danger, and danger meant failure. She would line up every single thing, every distraction, that she would miss, and let them go, push them over the cliff to be retrieved later or lost to the fathomless depths of time. It was a difficult journey back from the edge of that oblivion. Getting there had been nothing at all.   
  
They stood in silence, but it was far from uncomfortable. She’d forgotten how easy it was, how easy they fell into a rhythm around each other, but this meeting was no homecoming. It was abrupt and random, like everything in the universe, and too much and yet not enough. There was no relief in his presence. She was still aching, and he was still distant, and they were both of them fractured mirrors of their old selves, cracked and hollow in all sorts of new places. 

Jyn let herself accept that she’d missed him, and what a strange feeling it was to miss someone who she knew she would always be missing.  It was obvious in the way he carried himself that he was itching for more, for another job, another life or death, adrenaline-pumping mission that would take him far, far away from here and her. Jyn couldn’t blame him, not when the same writhing, desperate need was begging inside of her, begging for that same sort of  _ more _ . The two of them were not made for standing still.

“I thought maybe you’d be gone by now,” Cassian said, swaying a little on his feet into her space, a miscalculation of his balance. There was something like hope in his voice. She didn’t know what to do with that.  
  
Jyn couldn’t meet his eyes, wouldn’t grant him the opportunity to read in the lines of her face whatever she was trying not to say. She felt caged in.  
  
"Well, with a war going on, it’s kind of hard to convince people you’re worth a transport.”   
  
She saw the exact moment the book slammed closed, the exact moment the locks clicked in place. A rundown, world-weary stranger looked back at her, the same stranger that had watched her from the shadows of this very room, and she had no idea what to say. She had no gentle lies to offer. Words, kind words, soft words - they were stuck in her teeth, trapped and destined to rot in her throat. Gentle wasn't something she was sure she could be, and Cassian wouldn't appreciate it anyway because he wasn't gentle either. That word didn't apply to people like them. 

She wished it could be like the cheesy holos, the old, grandiose tales of two people finding each other and everything making sense, but that was a child's dream. Nothing ever made sense, especially not now, especially not with Cassian added into the long, confusing equation of her thoughts.   
  
"I’m sure you’ll figure something out," he said, and it wasn’t quite an accusation, but it was enough of one to make her feel guilty even though she didn't owe him anything. 

Jyn didn't owe  _ any _ of them a damn thing. He had no right to act like she did.

_ Stay, or go _ , the small voice in the back of her head whispered.

Jyn pushed herself off of the display, and matched his cold gaze, setting flame to the olive branch that had been so tenuously extended between them for the past few minutes. The anger was grounding, a lifeline in the vast sea, and she tugged and tugged and tugged. She was angry because of Scarif; she was angry because of the war; she was angry because when she stepped further into Cassian’s space, felt the heat and life of him, she wasn’t so angry anymore. The exhaustion from before made her knees shake with the weight of her body, but Jyn stood tall.

_ Stay, or go _ .

“I’m sure I will.”


	6. Chapter 6

There was something terrible about watching Jyn walk away.

Cassian was a man used to loss. Friends came and went, died or were reassigned. War made one numb to these sorts of scenes, ones that ended with him alone, as always. He hadn’t minded before. Being alone meant there was nothing and no one to miss, and this life had provided him with plenty of excuses and opportunities for solitude. He worked alone, and his missions were confidential, and his room had one bed. His only constant companion was -  _ had been _ , gods, it was so easy to forget - a reprogrammed Imperial droid with no filter or bedside manner to speak of, and that was all well and good, until even Kay was gone. A necessary casualty, the soldier in him said, while his heart spoke of bottomless grief. Now, he was watching the stiff retreat of a woman he’d grown to view as an equal on more levels than skill, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a farewell. A final one at that.

The idea that a few clumsy, ill-planned words could have ruined any chance of friendship was like a rock, dragging his heart down into the icy depths of fear.

He hadn’t gone into their conversation with a plan besides giving her a peace offering disguised as bad-tasting caf. The sight of her alone had been enough to send him into a quiet panic. He’d been set on going about his business, and letting her do the same until the time for words revealed itself. Cassian hadn’t expecting that time to come so soon.

The truth of it was he didn’t really know Jyn. He hadn’t - and still didn’t - really known how to approach a conversation that didn’t have the lingering, urgent threat of battle hanging over their heads. The war and their short but explosive time together had made him feel like he’d known her his whole life, but now that the safety net had been cut, he was freefalling into a dark pit of unsurity. He’d read her file, but words very rarely did people justice, especially the stiff, factual nature of military reports. He’d been ordered to kill her father, and he’d dragged her away from the man’s body, and he’d been on the receiving end of her searing fury, and they had saved each other more times than he count count, but. That was the issue: the ‘but’ that lingered on the edge of everything. He knew, but he didn’t really  _ know _ . Their conversations had been about orders, about battle plans, about survival. He knew how she reacted in life or death situations, but he had no idea what she liked to do for fun, if she even liked doing things for fun. Did she have interests beyond all of this? He’d caught a glimpse of a necklace around her neck with a crystal that looked like Kyber; it must have been sentimental, too personal, because she never spoke of it to him, or anyone else. It was the little things like that, small details, he wanted to learn more about, and not just from accidentally intrusive glances.

Speaking to her today had been like navigating a minefield. Him, the clumsy amateur who stumbled there on accident, and all the things they’d never spoke of or didn’t know how to, the mines. He’d found himself angry with her. He  _ was _ angry with her. Why? She was allowed to choose her own path, but his newfound freedom had made him brash, and unreasonable. He was aware of himself, and the itch to get going, get to work, resolve whatever needed to be resolved between him and his - well. That was another issue. Another mine in the field. Jyn was uncategorized in the index of people Cassian associated himself with these days. Bodhi was a friend. The few men and women who had survived the beach with them were colleagues, and even fewer were also friends. Jyn didn’t fit the definition he had for ‘friend’. She was a mystery to him, operating outside of the realm of his grasp, and watching her walk away had only confused him more.

Anyway, he was angry with her, and that was known territory. He could work with anger. He was angry because she wasn’t certain about joining the fight, because she’d been a part of a pivotal mission, proven herself to be indispensable, and she was still considering walking away. Cassian almost laughed at himself. His job was to lie, and even he couldn’t convince himself to believe that. No, he was angry with her because she was being herself. From what little information he had gathered about her in his mind, Jyn wasn’t a settler. She had been restless even when she’d been with Saw’s small army. It was in her nature to move on, but he wished she wouldn’t. That was the heart of the matter. He wanted her to stay, and he’d meant to say it, but she’d thrown his anger right back in his face, and that he couldn’t be mad about. They were too alike, their wavelengths almost the same but just off enough to clash.

Cassian picked up the still full mug of caf from the counter, and stared into the tar-like blackness. It was cold now which made it even more disgusting. At least, when it was scalding, one could burn their tongue enough that they wouldn’t be able to taste it. He sighed.

Quite a bit of time had passed since Jyn had left. More officers were milling about, skirting around him like there was some invisible barrier between him and the outside world. No one was paying him any attention, which he viewed as both a blessing and curse. He didn’t want to talk to anyone and they were too busy to talk to him, so he had nothing to occupy himself. Draven had really only called him in here out of pity, to make him feel like he was useful. Some higher ups and the Princess, who was beautiful and humbling and sharp-witted, asked him some half-hearted inquiries about Scarif and such, but he had no information about the state of the Empire’s fleet or anything that would be of any use tonight. He was a bird with clipped wings, and they all knew it. His injuries were driving him up the wall, and then, like a light in the dark, Jyn had appeared through the crowd, looking just as worn out and irritated as he was. Without her, he was alone, completely alone, and, for the first time in a long time, he couldn’t stand it.

Seeking her out again was a bad move. They’d already blundered their way through whatever that interaction had been, and he didn’t think he could handle another. Not if it meant things would be left in an even worse state than they were. For a fleeting moment, he almost missed the infirmary, all the medical droids and officers bustling about, the aggravating distraction of recovery keeping him from facing reality. Reality being that he had nowhere to go and no one to turn to. He flinched at the reminder of Kay’s death, how there was no flippant remark about his lack of social abilities, or any quiet but not too quiet mutterings about how much of a relief Jyn’s departure had been. The droid had been at his side for years, and he was very painfully aware of the gaping wound left on his side in the wake of his death on Scarif. Watching Jyn leave had only widened it, made it bleed a little more. Reality was that he’d lost so many pieces of himself on that beach, he wasn’t sure he could get any of them back. If there was anything to get back, for that matter. Something had been unchained inside of him today, something he’d hoped never would be, something whose name had been forgotten after all these years of neglect. He still didn’t know what it was, but it made his whole being shake, made him feel like he could drop at any moment and not from his healing injuries.

At the thought of his body, Cassian’s armpits began to ache from the crutches, and a gripping pain pulsed through his hip all the way to his left foot. A migraine was building behind his eyes. His previous irritation with himself came back tenfold. He was completely useless, couldn’t even go a few hours without feeling like he would keel over.

Maybe Draven was right. Maybe he needed the time off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so, so terribly sorry for how long it's taken me to update. I got very sick with the flu for about a week and a half, and I've been busting my ass trying to get my life back in order since. I know this is going very slowly plot-wise, but I assure you it will pick up very soon. I'll probably be posting another chapter this weekend as compensation! As always, hope you enjoyed! :)

**Author's Note:**

> Will try to update regularly, but can't make any promises. As always, hope you liked it!


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